Noodle Tuesday: New Ramen Santouka

By Martha Cheng

Published: 2013.10.15 02:08 PM

Ramen Santouka

There's a new ramen shop at the Don Quijote in town, a sleek and shiny place of white and metal and glass. It's 10 p.m. and there's still a wait for a table. Pass the time by peering into one of the windows, where you'll see stockpots of broth at a roiling boil, fed by a measured drip of water to replace the evaporation.

Ramen Santouka started when its founder, Hitoshi Hatanaka, watched Tampopo, and stopped for noodles after. He was disappointed in the ramen quality and vowed to make a better bowl. He opened his first ramen shop in 1988; now, there are more than 40 locations throughout Japan, the U.S., Singapore, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

Toroniku ramen

The broth here is porky and milky, the noodles firm, though they can be cooked to your liking. One of the main draws is the toroniku ramen, a bowl accompanied by thin slices of pork cheek, so tender that it will make you reconsider pork belly as your favorite cut.

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From five-star restaurants to hidden holes-in-the-wall, Biting Commentary will let you know what’s hot and what’s not. Find out the latest restaurant news—who’s opening, who’s closing, which chef is moving on, where the great special dinners are. Discover the best menu items, fabulous wines, stunning cocktails and hand-crafted beers.

Born and raised on O‘ahu, Food & Dining editor Catherine Toth Fox worked as a newspaper reporter in Hawai‘i for more than 10 years and has freelanced—in between teaching journalism, hitting the surf and eating everything in sight—for national and local print and online publications since 1997. She earned her master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1999, with a focus on magazine writing and publishing. And she received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, graduating with distinction in 1996.